‘I feel sorry for David’, Ed Miliband tells Channel 4 News

“Do you feel guilty?”, was my opener with Ed Miliband this morning in Manchester as we wait for his brother David to announce in London in a few hours that he is stepping back from frontline politics. “I feel sorry for David”, was the answer. But the new Labour leader insists he did the right thing for his family in standing against his brother, and David will make a contribution to British politics.

You can watch the interview tonight, or online later today, but in it he insists he has got a mandate to lead the Labour Party despite losing among the MP’s, Shadow Cabinet and party membership. On policy we got more of an idea on what he means when he says Alistair Darlings plan to cut the deficit by half in four years is just his starting point. He says he wants to raise more in tax and cut less than Alistair Darling wanted. That means if the balance between cuts and taxation in the current government is 76% cuts to 24% tax, and Alistair Darling wanted it to be 67% cuts 33% tax, Ed Miliband wants to go even further. On immigration he says he is not talking about reversing the free movement of labour across Europe, so it is not clear how he would stop foreign workers accepting lower pay than British workers. He says he was not just talking about bankers when it comes to tackling high pay, and yes, he is likely to marry his girlfriend Justine when he has time!